The shooter has been identified as Jared Loughner:
Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is in an intensive care unit following surgery for a gunshot wound in the head at close range, the University of Arizona hospital announced Saturday afternoon.
Spokesman Peter Rhee said Giffords is optimistic about the congresswoman’s recovery.
State Sen. Linda Lopez, a close friend of Giffords’, told Fox News that the three-term congresswoman was shot in the temple and the bullet exited through her forehead. Lopez said Giffords was responding to commands and she was confident that she will survive surgery but is not sure what Giffords’ long term prognosis is.
At least 19 people were shot at Giffords’ “Your Corner” event held outside a Safeway grocery store in Tucson, including three members of the Democratic congresswoman’s staff in Arizona. Five have died, including one of Giffords’ aides, and nine are in critical condition at the University of Arizona Medical Center.
My prayers are with all the families effected by this horrible tragedy.
Within minutes of the shooting the liberal nimrods came out in force on twitter and their favorite web haunts to proclaim the Tea Party and Sarah Palin guilty for supposedly pushing this nutcase into shooting the Democrat Congresswoman.
Listening to FOX News, State Senator Linda Lopez told Sheppard Smith she heard the shooter served in the military in Afghanistan. Lopez also talked about the ‘horrible signs’ at Tea Party rallies during the last election.
Within minutes of the shooting:
TeaBagsAreForCups (214 posts)
Sat Jan-08-11 01:36 PM
Response to Original message
14. Looking forward to learning his moniker at the cesspool…… The “Free” Republic.
RimJob will be establishing a memorial contribution account in his name during the current FReepathon.
“Woo hoo!”
Twitter within minutes of the shooting:
@SarahPalinUSA will u be happy when everyone on Your target list is shot dead? Don’t u know there’s crazy people that take things literally?
@McCainBlogette I hope your Dad is happy with the hateful rhetoric he helped perpetuate now. Sarah P’s ‘target’ list is on his hands too.
@markos HAPPY NOW FUCKING TEA BAGGERS?SHE WAS ON PALIN’S “TARGET” LIST. HER BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS FOX, BECK AND PALIN!#foxnews #beck #palin
@StaffaRoadTrip She was on Palin’s “target list”. She’s got blood on her hands. Happy now, tea partiers?
Palin six people are dead at shooting of Congresswoman Giffords one of your targets. I hope you are happy.
And on CNN:
AZ Daily Star political cartoonist David Fitzsimmons on @CNN: “The right has been stoking the fires of heated anger and rage” in AZ.
And from our own comments our resident lefty nimrod John Ryan:
there are a lot of nuts out there. And it is real easy for them to get guns capable of killing many people. And it doesn’t take much talk using words like “traitor” or “destroying our country” to set them off. In any school in the USA if a child makes a list marked “hit list” he is going to be in big trouble. When a politician does he/she gets cheers. The Federal Judge that was killed had received many many death threats. And they were not coming from the left.
The Myspace page of the suspect, Jared Loughner, was taken down minutes ago but a screenshot of the pictures has been put up on twitter (not sure if it’s real yet):
He also apparently has a youtube channel with five video’s he made….after viewing them you understand the man is a NUT. He writes (much of it barely coherent) about mindcontrol, brainwashing, a “new currency”, “conscience dreaming”, and oddly enough government control of grammar structure. The youtube channel is here but it will be taken down soon so I downloaded the video’s:
He’s a nut, a Schizo. On his Youtube page check out what he likes!
The Communist Manifesto?
This is a tragedy and NOT the time to point fingers at one party or another, especially considering this guy doesn’t appear to affiliated with either but instead believed the government was controlling his mind.
UPDATE
Picture of the suspect:
See author page